


Smiling With a Mouth Full of Blood

by Adenar



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: A lot of Hurt, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Fon Ronsenburg Brothers, Hurt, Landis, Pre-Canon, it's just hurt really, ya girl can't even look at blood but can't stop writing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25087627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenar/pseuds/Adenar
Summary: Prompt: "AU where basch didn’t leave and he’s the one who ends up dying in noah’s arms (probably while fighting to protect landis or s/t) hahahahahahahahahaha"Something I wrote to terrorise a friend who made a throwaway comment about an AU to terrorise another friend. That's what friends are for.
Relationships: Gabranth | Noah fon Ronsenburg & Basch fon Ronsenburg
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Smiling With a Mouth Full of Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ronsenboobi (snewvilliurs)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snewvilliurs/gifts), [Livvy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livvy/gifts).



Noah stumbles back behind the line of archers, clutching his leg. He will be fine, he thinks. Adrenaline keeps the pain at bay.

The battle is grinding them down. The longer he stays out on the battlefield, the larger the sea of metallic bodies becomes. He stares down at his leather-clad hand. The glove is beginning to soak with blood from his leg. It is not the worst injury he’s had, he tells himself, insists to himself. But there is a Judge on the field. He cannot fight with an unbandaged wound.

The Judge.

The coin spent on armour of that calibre could feed a thousand starving Landisians for a year. By now Noah was familiar with that wolf-like reaction, the rising of hackles, that he had felt when he first spied that ominous figure ploughing towards him. Through the thick crowd he could hear and see the chaos as it tossed aside the barely-armoured resistance fighters like some worgen swatting cactites.

Noah limps towards a hospital tent. He is needed. There are few fighters on the field with experience enough to even distract a Judge, let alone fight one, and give others precious moments to devise a strategy. The thing inside that metal suit is not a hume, Noah thinks. It is a puppet.

“Brother!”

Noah is surprised to find his brother lurking outside the tent. Basch takes him, props him up, and helps him to a bed.

“Have you seen the Judge?” Noah pants, in earnest.

“Nay, but I will attend.” Basch responds, and hands rags to his twin in order to stem the bloodflow. “You have picked a poor time for injury, brother.”

“I need only something to stem the flow. I may not hold the Judge long, but few will.”

“Now is not the time for resignation.” Basch reprimands. “I will find Jeth. We will hold it together. Do not come if it is reckless to do so.”

“I am not foolish enough to charge a Judge with an open wound, brother.” Noah retorts.

“If you insist.” Basch says, with a small smile. He claps his twin on the shoulder, gives him a look of solidarity. “Be quick.”

Basch turns, and leaves.

The tent is overcrowded; the nurses have barely noticed Noah’s entrance, other than to note that he is fully conscious, someone is with him, and therefore he can be left to nurse himself. Noah groans, silently. This is not how one fights winning battles. Basch can insist on positivity all he likes but there is a time that comes for realism. If they sound a retreat before Noah finishes tying up this wound, Noah will be surprised, but not altogether ungrateful. Too many lives have been lost this day. The blood that mars the Earth was too much Landisian, and not Archadian.

After too long has passed - or perhaps only a minute, who can tell in this endless blazing climate? - Noah deems that he has used enough rags, and those currently crushed around his thigh will have to do, regardless of how bloodstained they may already be. The adrenaline is wearing off, and the pain is beginning to overcome him. He will be exposed until he reaches the bulk of the fighting, and so he charges as fast as he can to the fighting on the edges of the field.

The Judge looms above the crowd, inexplicably taller than those around him if only for his helmet, fashioned into horns like a sleipnir’s.

He comes to the stragglers, the wounded, trying to escape the fighting but only running into those armoured troops which have made it this far. There are too many bodies here. Noah hits an uhlan hard, and in the short ensuing battle, realises that he now feels the gap between his armour and his foe’s more sharply than ever before. This does not bode well. He works his way, refusing to accept his leg’s inability to move. As he struggles closer he begins to spy his twin dancing with the Judge’s strokes. A good tactic; tempt engagement, then deny, and anger your opponent into focusing on you.

The Judge is dangerously close when Noah passes Jeth - or what he thinks is left of Jeth, judging by the amount of Jeth’s face that has been smashed in. There is blood everywhere, on everything, on everyone. Noah feels sick.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Judge is upon him. Its hammer collides with two soldiers to Noah’s right. It gives Noah time to duck. The soldiers fall, bloodied and lifeless. The Judge is fast, too fast for someone armed with a hammer, but not too fast to catch Noah if he plays his cards well. Basch has disappeared. Noah stumbles away, but holds his sword ready. How is a leather-clad foot-soldier supposed to engage a metallic behemoth? With guts, and lightning feet, Noah quickly decides, and dodges the next swing which comes impossibly fast after the last. Momentum shouldn’t work that way. Noah curses, and strikes out wildly at the Judge’s feet. A rat can bring down a cat, if it knows where to bite.

It certainly draws the Judge’s attention. Noah stumbles backwards to avoid his face being crushed in on itself, pauses, waits for the next stroke; dodges underneath and charges forwards, attempting to stab underneath the Judge’s chest piece. All he succeeds in doing is losing his sword. The Judge swings.

Noah hits the floor, hard. All goes silent. For a few terrible seconds he can’t breathe, and his vision swims. His entire right side goes numb, and then suddenly starts throbbing with a pain that he has never felt before. The Judge has lost interest. “Damnit-” Noah croaks.

He tries to lie still while his vision returns, and prays that no one guts him while he’s down. If he doesn’t move, hopefully they’ll think that he’s dead. He feels something gingerly touching his gloved left hand and he tenses, waiting for the killing blow. The throbbing in his ears spikes, then levels out, then begins to dim as the noises of the world creep back into his consciousness. Swords. Armour. Screams. “-ah. Noah.”

“…Basch?”

He still cannot see properly, but the knowledge that the weak hand at his own belongs to his twin is comforting. He takes it and holds tight, though every sinew in his body screams in agony at the movement.

“Will you..be able to walk?” Basch asks. His voice is quiet, laboured. Weak.

Noah can still barely breathe, but nods in response, even if he is entirely unsure that he is telling the truth.

“Good…” Basch sighs. There is a rough edge to his voice, more than usual, as if there is something in his throat.

Now Noah finds he can take tiny, shallow breaths, but at least they are regular. They hurt like all hell, but his lungs work. With the return of his ability to breathe, his eyes start to recover.

His heart may as well stop beating.

Basch’s face is near-crushed on one side; his ear is clean off, and the rest of his scalp is a bloody mess of hair, sinew, and broken bone. Blood seeps out of his brother’s mouth but he smiles as Noah’s eyes focus in on him. How his brother is still alive, Noah doesn’t know. Basch’s shoulder hangs at an unnatural angle with a wound open at the joint like a sore, and his collarbone pokes through his shirt.

Though he can barely breathe, Noah crawls towards his brother’s unmoving form. “Basch.” Noah hisses, just able to gather the breath to make the shortest of sounds.

“Jeth rushed.” Basch wheezes. “Died…instantly. Couldn’t fight alone.”

“Basch.”

“Tried…forgive me.”

“Basch.” Noah repeats, reaching out to hold his brother’s side, pulling himself as best he can. “Basch.”

“Don’t give up.” Basch continues, regardless, as Noah pulls himself forward a final time and rests his forehead against the ragged flesh of his brother’s. “Landis is not…lost.”

“No.”

“Forgive me.”

“Please.”

He stares at his brother’s face. His vision is still blurry, and he still cannot breathe properly. But Basch’s breath is failing far more drastically. The blood drooling from his mouth has formed a sickening puddle by Basch’s head. Noah’s head is spinning.

“Mother…”

“I will...care for her.” Noah rasps. Though Noah thinks it is a pathetic sentence, it seems to comfort Basch. Basch barely moves, but Noah knows; he has always been able to read Basch.

“Thank you.” Basch responds. Noah thinks he can feel Basch’s hand tighten around his just for a second, before calmly breathing out, closing his eyes, and relaxing his grip. He does not breathe again.


End file.
